Prof. Ricky LEE Shi-Wei, Chair Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and Dean of Systems Hub and Chair Professor of Smart Manufacturing Thrust at HKUST (Guangzhou), has been selected to receive the prestigious 2024 Worcester Reed Warner Medal by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) in recognition of “defining solder joint failure modes that impact industrial test standards”. Prof. Lee is among the very few Chinese scholars (including the well-respected Prof. FUNG Yuan-Cheng, known as the “Father of Modern Biomechanics”) who received this long-established society-level award since it was first presented in 1933. He is also the only Chinese recipient with career fully developed in Asia.

The medal is awarded to an individual for seminal contribution to the permanent literature of engineering. Medalists’ works should be highly influential to a generation of engineers. The medal will be presented at InterPACK 2024, ASME’s flagship conference on electronic packaging, to be held in San Jose, California, US on October 8-10, 2024.

Prof. Lee’s work that is recognized by the ASME Committee of Honors is a series of papers and monographs published over a period of eight years related to the reliability tests of lead-free solder joints. The outcome of his research was adopted by JEDEC (a global leader in developing open standards for the microelectronics industry) into its standards, including definitions of solder joint failure modes and relevant failure analysis. These test standards are widely used in the microelectronics industry and the current generation of electronic packaging engineers have been substantially influenced.

“I wish to thank my former PhD students, in particular Dr. SONG Fubin, Dr. YANG Chaoran, Dr. Jeffery LO, and Dr. HUANG Xingjia, who contributed to this series of research. Thanks also due to HKUST’s Electronic Packaging Laboratory (EPACK Lab), Materials Characterization and Preparation Facility (MCPF) and Nanosystem Fabrication Facility (NFF) for their invaluable equipment supports,” said Prof. Lee.

Prof. Lee received his PhD degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from Purdue University in 1992 and joined HKUST in 1993. He has been focusing his research on the technology development for electronics/optoelectronics packaging and additive manufacturing. The topics of his R&D interests include wafer level packaging and heterogeneous integration, 3D printing for microsystems packaging, LED packaging for solid-state lighting and applications beyond lighting, lead-free soldering and reliability analysis.

The research outcomes of Prof. Lee’s group have been documented in numerous technical papers in international journals and conference proceedings. He also co-authored four books and 10 book chapters. Due to his technical contributions, he received many honors and awards over the years. In addition to being the recipient of 10 best/outstanding paper awards and seven major professional society awards, he is a Fellow of IEEE, ASME, IMAPS, and Institute of Physics (UK). He is also the editor-in-chief of ASME Journal of Electronic Packaging.